Ambassador Ziauddin urges UN to recognize March 25 as 'Genocide Day'

DHAKA, March 26, 2017 (BSS) -Bangladesh Ambassador to the USA Mohammad Ziauddin has appealed to the United Nations to recognize March 25 as "Genocide Day" marking the most horrendous episode of human massacre in Bangladesh by the Pakistani occupation army in 1971.

"The systematic genocide of the innocent and unarmed people of Bangladesh by the then Pakistani military regime left over three million dead; a quarter of a million women and young girls dishonored... indeed, the genocide by the Pakistani army in Bangladesh was and is one of the worst holocaust in human history," he said at a discussion at Bangabandhu Auditorium of the chancery on Saturday evening.

To observe the "Genocide Day", Bangladesh Embassy in Washington D.C. organized a photography exhibition on Genocide '71, screening of a documentary on Genocide in Bangladesh and candle light vigil on the embassy premises, according to a message received here today.

Foreigners, members of the Bangladesh community, journalists and officers and employees of the embassy joined the program.

The messages of President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina were read out. One minute silence was observed as a mark of respect to those brutally killed by the Pakistani military under the code name 'Operation Searchlight" on March 25, 1971.

Ziauddin said the first reports of this genocide in Bangladesh was published by journalist Anthony Mascarenhas in The Sunday Times, London on June 13 in 1971 titled "Genocide", which helped turn the world opinion against Pakistan.

Later on 2nd August in 1971, the Time magazine correspondent sent a dispatch providing a detailed description of the calamity in the then East Pakistan. It quoted a senior US official as saying "It is the most incredible, calculated thing since the days of the Nazis in Poland."

Moreover, US Consul and diplomat in Dhaka Archer K. Blood wrote in his report "... with support of the Pak military, non-Bengali Muslims are systematically attacking poor people's quarters and murdering Bengalis and Hindus."

The ambassador said: "It surely calls for recognition of the world community and therefore, I appeal to the United Nations to recognize 25 March as Genocide day," the release said.